Wednesday, December 22, 2010

I Don't Like Children, Either.

(Good grief! I announce my return and then proceed to blow off the blog for two months. Sorry! The longer I go, the more pressure I feel to make a truly spectacular blog entry, and it's kind of making me crazy, so I'm just dashing this off to get the ball rolling.)

The other day, we were listening to the weather report on the radio, and the weather guy was talking about storms in the midwest, and Andy asked Ben what the dude on the radio was talking about, and Ben said, "Vat dude talk 'bout soda." Yep -- Minnesota.

It's pretty fascinating, seeing through the eyes of a two-and-half-year-old. Also infuriating. It truly boggles the mind how many times one person can be told NOT TO GRAB THE DOG'S EARS and yet still, about once an hour if not more, grab the god-damned dog's ears. How is that so tough to grasp when other things are absorbed and incorporated into his worldview so fast I can't even work backwards to figure out where he learned them? He started praising dinner recently by calling it a "(s)pecial meal." This is not something Andy or I say, or have ever said probably, and so it took us some time to figure out where it came from. A book about Thanksgiving, we finally figured out, which talks about people traveling to each other's homes for a special meal.

One of the things that continues to fascinate me is how fascinating Ben is compared to other children, who are all -- apologies to their parents, some of whom are my dear friends -- awfully dull. This is part of why I haven't written lately: all the things it occurs to me to write about ("Vat dude talk 'bout soda") fall so distinctly into the category of It's Interesting When It's My Kid; I Don't Care When It's Yours. It makes me think about a good friend of mine who explained his lack of desire for his own children by pointing out that he didn't particularly like children. Even before I had a kid, I had a pretty good idea that that was some bogus reasoning. I don't like children, either, as a rule. They're ignorant and selfish and dishonest and rude and make extremely tedious conversation.

Nat and I are always doing that reverse-engineering you're talking about. It often turns out that it's something we do but don't even realize it. Like Tin Tin does this thing where she says "What you doing Dada?" and I tell her and she says "Oh Iiii seeeee..." in this very knowing tone. It took me weeks to figure out it's actually something that Nat says all the time, but doesn't sound as notable coming out of her mouth.

When people tell me about their kids, I usually hit them back with a similar story about my cats. Sometimes I mix it up and tell a story showing how one of my cats is significantly more intelligent than their kid. People love that.